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Archives Month: MX Moment for Utah

Did you know that in the late 1970’s the Great Basin region of Nevada and Utah nearly became home to the largest human construction project on Earth? The proposed MX missile system would have not only have militarized a huge section of the American West, but fundamentally altered the environment and various ways of life that have emerged in the region. Join us for a presentation that will explore records found in the Utah State Archives that help illuminate Utah’s “MX moment” and give voice to the various people and places that would have been impacted by its creation.

James Kichas is a processing and reference archivist for the Utah State Archives. Jim spent his first seven months with the archives processing the records of former Utah governors Herbert Maw and Scott Matheson (where he first learned the details of MX). Over the last nine years Jim has processed a wide variety of records in the Utah State Archives collection, helped administer an NHPRC grant focused on bringing physical and intellectual control over Utah’s historic court records, and provided reference assistance to the public in the Utah History Research Center. In the fall of 2010 Jim began work on a master’s degree in Environmental Humanities at the University of Utah. His masters’ project work is focused on a set of records held by the State Archives related to the MX Missile System, and is scheduled for completion in fall 2012.